Get a little liquor in the system and even the biggest weirdo freak vegan will chow down on a juicy burger. According to a recent poll in the UK a large amount of so-called vegetarians admit to snacking on tasty animal flesh after having a few too many adult beverages.

Via The Independent UK:

Two in five of 1,789 vegetarians questioned owned up to treating themselves to a sneaky kebab after a few drinks.

And one in three said they indulged in meat every time they went out drinking.

Twenty-seven per cent of the lapsing veggies said they ate bacon, while 19 per cent opted for fried chicken and 14 per cent confessed to munching on sausages.

…

The survey was conducted by money-saving website Voucher Codes Pro.

George Charles, founder of the website, said: “I know a few ‘vegetarians’ who sometimes crave meat, but it seems that a few are giving into their cravings when drunk.

“I think it’s important for friends of these ‘vegetarians’ to support them when drunk and urge them not to eat meat as I’m sure they regret it the next day.” Read More…

I say bullshit, if you have a friend who doesn’t eat meat its you’re duty as a normal person to encourage them to quit their foolishness.

It’s not just British “vegetarians,” 84% of idiots go back to eating meat when they remember that steak is tasty.

Ladies, are you a soccer-mom now and worried that Tinkerbell tramp stamp you got in college is going to cramp your style? Or guys are you a former meathead that miraculously managed to get some brain cells to start functioning and you realized that the awful tribal armband you got has to go? Well don’t fret, Alec Falkenham, a PhD from Canada may one day have the answer for you.

The current procedure for getting unwanted or embarrassing tattoos removed is to undergo expensive laser treatment that hurts way more then getting that tattoo put on ever did. Falkenham however is currently working on a new method, a “cream” that could wipe away the bad memories.

Via Dalhousie University’s Dal News:

Falkenham has come up with a different approach, one that makes use of the natural healing process that your skin activates after it’s tattooed in the first place.

When you get a tattoo, the pigment from the ink deposits into the skin where it’s then consumed by white blood cells named “macrophages.”

“Macrophages are known as the big eaters of the immune system,” says Falkenham. “They eat foreign material, like tattoo pigment, to protect the surrounding tissue.”

In the case of tattoos, two populations of macrophages react to the ink in different ways. One set of macrophages transports some of the pigment to the draining lymph nodes, removing it from the area. The other population that has “eaten” the pigment goes deeper into your skin, becomes inactive and forms the visible tattoo. Over time, the macrophages that formed the tattoo are replaced by new macrophages, which cause the tattoo to blur and fade.

“BLTR is a cream that you put on your skin,” he explains, describing how BLTR makes use of a lipid-vesicle, or liposome, that his team has created.

“When new macrophages come to remove the liposome from cells that once contained pigment, they also take the pigment with them to the lymph nodes, resulting in a fading tattoo,” says Falkenham. Read More…

There is no word yet when the tattoo removal cream will be approved for use and available to buy. Falkenham claims that it will be much safer then the current laser procedure, but is not yet sure how many applications of the cream will be needed to completely fade away your poor decisions.

Full disclosure, I used to have a crappy tribal armband tattoo, that has long since been covered up by a large half-sleeve dragon design.

That $5 jar of Jif Peanut butter on the shelf at the grocery store just not your thing? Well the federal government has something for you. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has created the worlds most expensive jar of peanut butter.

Is this some kind of special peanut butter, is it made from some rare peanut that can only be found in some remote hard to reach corner of the world? Nope.

It is just normal, run of the mill peanut butter. The only thing special about it is the fact that it was made by an entity of the United States Federal government — thus the inflated price tag.

Via eater.com

So why the eye-boggling price tag? It has to do with the labor involved: Dozens of scientists and lab technicians around the country spent time analyzing the peanut butter. This peanut butter is ”standard reference material, designed not to be eaten but… to be fed into gas chromatographs, mass spectrometers and other analytical equipment.” The NIST’s job is to provide a baseline product and respective analysis so that manufacturers have a reference by which to compare other, similar foods.

When it was first released in 2003, the NIST’s peanut butter was a huge step forward in food group analysis and cost $140 per jar. It has since more than quintupled in price.

Though it contains no gold, this is the gold standard of peanut butter. Read More…

Doctors in the Czech Republic have created an artificial vagina for an unidentified woman whose love canal was so narrow that she could no longer have sex. The woman suffers from an extreme case of scleroderma, an autoimmune disease that causes hard, thickened areas of skin.

She was sent to University Hospital in the town of Plzen, Czech Republic, after her gynecologist found she was so narrow it was not even possible to carry out an examination.

To try and help her condition, surgeons decided to use a technique called a Mesh Augmented Vaginal Reconstruction. The mesh that was used, came from the intestines of a pig.

Via The UK Daily Mail:

Pig tissue is often used because its genetic make up is similar to that of humans.

For over 30 years, scientists have been using pigs in a number of medical fields, including dermatology and cardiology.

Scientists have even re-grown human leg muscles using implants made of pig bladder tissue.

During surgery to treat the Czech patient, surgeons made an incision to enlarge the narrowed area.

They then used the mesh made from pig’s intestine to widen the walls of the woman’s vagina.

And following the success of the operation, the doctors now plan to publish a scientific paper on the technique.

Vladimir Kalis, head doctor of the gynaecological-obstetrical clinic at the hospital, told CEN: ‘Two years ago, the woman started to have problems during sex.

‘The illness had narrowed the vaginal entrance so much that even gynaecological examinations were not possible.’

Dr Kalis said many women suffer with the same problem – but most are too embarrassed to ask for help.

He said: ‘In the case of the patient we operated on, she had been given various medications by her gynaecologist but nothing helped, so she referred to us.’

He acknowledged that vaginal surgery was not common and was usually to performed for the opposite problem.

He added: ‘The material used is referred to as pig net.

‘Its thickness is about one millimetre.

‘Over time human tissue will be created around the net and the pig net will be absorbed by the body.’

He added that the surgery lasted about one hour and the patient left hospital after five days. Read More…

Judge Richard Posner, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, believes that the NSA should have unlimited access to digital data.

Privacy? It’s not really that important, according to one Federal Judge, Richard Posner, who currently sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Last week, during a conference in Washington, D.C., about cybercrime, Posner stated that he believed that privacy is “overvalued.” “Much of what passes for the name of privacy is really just trying to conceal the disreputable parts of your conduct,” he said.

Via PC World:

Congress should limit the NSA’s use of the data it collects—for example, not giving information about minor crimes to law enforcement agencies—but it shouldn’t limit what information the NSA sweeps up and searches, Posner said. “If the NSA wants to vacuum all the trillions of bits of information that are crawling through the electronic worldwide networks, I think that’s fine,” he said.

In the name of national security, U.S. lawmakers should give the NSA “carte blanche,” Posner added. “Privacy interests should really have very little weight when you’re talking about national security,” he said. “The world is in an extremely turbulent state—very dangerous.”

Posner criticized mobile OS companies for enabling end-to-end encryption in their newest software. “I’m shocked at the thought that a company would be permitted to manufacture an electronic product that the government would not be able to search,” he said

…

Posner questioned why smartphone users need legal protections, saying he doesn’t understand what information on smartphones should be shielded from government searches. “If someone drained my cell phone, they would find a picture of my cat, some phone numbers, some email addresses, some email text,” he said. “What’s the big deal? Read More…

So, basically according to Posner, as long as its in the interest of ‘National Security’ the State has the power to do pretty much whatever it damn well pleases to you. If you don’t think those thoughts coming from a sitting Federal Judge are not downright terrifying, there is something seriously wrong with you.

Dr. Charlene Krueger, associate professor at the University of Florida’s (UF) College of Nursing, assesses a patient’s fetal heart rate. July 2, 2014. Reuters/Jesse S. Jones/University of Florida/Handout

ORLANDO Fla. (Reuters) – Babies in the womb show evidence of learning by their 34th week, three weeks earlier than previously thought, new research has found.

“It really pushed the envelope” in terms of how early babies begin to learn, lead researcher Charlene Krueger, associate professor at the University of Florida’s College of Nursing, said on Thursday.

The study, published in the journal Infant Behavior and Development, followed 32 women from their 28th through 38th weeks of pregnancy in an investigation to pinpoint when the ability to learn emerges.

Krueger had the women repeat three times out loud a set 15-second nursery rhyme, and do it twice a day for six weeks. The selected rhyme was previously unknown to the mothers.

The fetuses’ heart rates were monitored at 32, 33 and 34 weeks as they listened to a recording of a female stranger recite the rhyme.

By the 34th week, Krueger said, the heart rates of the tested fetuses showed an overall slight decline while listening to the recording, compared with a control group of fetuses whose heart rates slightly accelerated while listening to a recording of a new nursery rhyme. Read More…

I’m so confused, learning in the womb? Progressives tell us that they are just little blobs of flesh that can be ripped out on demand, even President Obama said that having one is “punishment.” How can a “blob of flesh” learn?

Here comes some great news for those people who’ve ever had to fart on a bus, or an airplane or in any other public place. No longer is there any need to be worried, no longer do you have to cower in shame or release a test fart. You can fart freely, knowing that your gas may help save lives.

Via The Western Daily Press:

The smell of flatulence has secret health benefits – and could help stave off cancer, strokes, heart attacks and dementia, scientists have revealed.

Hydrogen sulfide is one of a number of potent smelly gases produced by bacteria as it breaks down food in the gut.

It is toxic in large doses but in tiny amounts it helps protect cells and fight illness, according to boffins at Exeter University.

When cells become stressed by disease they try to draw in enzymes to generate their own minute quantities of hydrogen sulfide.

The chemical helps to preserve mitochondria, which drive energy production in blood vessel cells and regulate inflammation, and without it the cell can switch off and die.

Researchers have thus come up with a new compound named AP39 to assist the body in producing just the right amount of hydrogen sulfide that it needs.

They believe it will help prevent or reverse mitochondrial damage, which is a key strategy in treating conditions such as stroke, heart failure, diabetes, arthritis, dementia and ageing. READ MORE…

In what very well may be the first step taken that will ultimately lead in their being bought out by Brawndo, the US Food & Drug Administration has recently approved a small study, allowing doctors at Pittsburgh’s UPMC Presbyterian Hospital to try to suspend human life.

The procedure will cut the body temperature of the test-subjects to 50 degrees Farenheit, for 2 hours, by inserting a tube into the aorta and flushing the system with s saline solution.

Due to the extremely time-sensitive and dire nature of the injuries of the test subjects, the FDA has declared that the surgeons will not require informed consent. As a precaution, the team took out advertisements to inform the public of the upcoming study, and even set up a website that would allow people to opt out, if desired. As of yet, nobody has opted out.

The team will first use this technique on 10 trauma patients whose injuries would be otherwise fatal. That group will be compared against 10 other patients who are not able to undergo EPR, due to the surgical team not being available. After the first increments of 10 EPR and 10 control patients, the technique will be analyzed and refined. They will continue in this fashion until enough data points have been collected which will allow them to analyze the efficacy of suspending life in this manner, though a predetermined set number has not been made.

The State’s never-ending battle to invade our privacy never ends. The latest attempt to violate the right to privacy comes from the California (where else?). Next week a City Council Committee in San Jose is going to discuss a proposal introduced last Thursday by Councilman Sam Liccardo, that would ask for homeowners to give access to their home security access to the Police for, you know, “the greater good.”

From The San Jose Mercury News:

Privacy groups say the latest proposal is part of a broader trend toward a world where authorities have more surveillance access to places that once were considered private.

“To me the really interesting and troublesome part of it is the way we are starting to privatize government surveillance — to enlist private citizens in a way that is kind of unprecedented and could be potentially really dangerous,” said Hanni Fakhoury, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit. “Once you give the police unfettered access 24/7, you’re relying on them to exercise their restraint.”

Retired judge LaDoris Cordell, the city’s independent police auditor, said the proposal is the next logical extension of technological advances that have helped provide cops with more video of crimes. It’s common now for onlookers to take cellphone videos of officers, and the San Jose Police Department is working on a new program to equip officers with body-worn cameras.

“You tend to behave when the cameras are on you,” Cordell said. She doesn’t see the idea so much as an “intrusion on privacy” but as a way for residents to “know what’s going on in their neighborhood.” Read More…

I’m reminded of this great Benjamin Franklin quote, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.“

Here comes some news that will surely make stalkers, serial killers, child predators and all of the other creepers of the world rejoice. A Las Vegas tech start-up has a new app for Google Glass or smart phones that will allow the aspiring next BTK Killer or next Ted Bundy much easier access to being able to seek out and stalk victims.

Riding the bus and see someone whose face you want to cut off and wear as a mask? But you just don’t know if they are the type of person you want to torture and kill. Well now, the folks at NameTag are making it much easier for you. Just snap their pic using your smart phone or Google Glass device and the app will send the picture NameTag’s server, where it will compare the photo to millions of online records and return with a name, social media profiles, like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and access to a whole lot more pictures and information. Being a sick twisted fuck has never been easier.

Kevin Tussy, NameTag’s creator claims that the goal of his app are much more wholesome in nature then what it will surely be used for. NameTag is working on technology that will allow scanning of profile piuctures on various on-line dating sites.

“I believe that this will make online dating and offline social interactions much safer and give us a far better understanding of the people around us,” Tussy said in a statement last month. “It’s much easier to meet interesting new people when we can simply look at someone, see their Facebook, review their LinkedIn page or maybe even see their dating site profile.”

While the idea of being able to screen registered sex offenders does have certain merits to it, the overall destruction of privacy that this app will create is huge. While Google has already banned facial recognition apps from Google Glass due to “privacy concerns.” It’s still a relatively easy jailbreak.

The same type of technology that the NSA is using is now soon to be in the hands of just about anyone. I don’t think even Orwell could have envisioned what this could mean.

Here in America we have liberal-kook politician Dennis Kucinich who has claimed to have seen a UFO (I’m still hoping they’d come back to take him home), but our little brothers to the north have one-upped us. Paul Hellyer, Canada’s former Cold War era defense minister, not only claims to have seen a UFO, which he said, “…just looks like a star,” he also claims that aliens have been visiting Earth for thousands of years.

But that’s not even the crazy part, Hellyer claims that the reason that our interstellar neighbors have not revealed themselves to us is because we have created the atomic bomb. You see E.T. Is afraid that the whole balance of the cosmos will be thrown out of whack because if we know of their existence that we may use our nuclear weapons again.

According to CNET:

Hellyer used to believe that there were between 2 and 12 different species of alien. Now, he says he’s received reports that there might be as many as 80.

What’s perhaps most interesting to our self-centered species is that some of them apparently look just like us. Indeed, he claimed that two alien ladies went to Las Vegas to shop dressed as nuns and no one was any the wiser.

Why would they be? This was Vegas. Try that in Springfield, Ill.

In case you feel you might have met one in your home town, some are tall (“Nordic blondes”), some are short (“Short Grays”), and some look like aliens in cartoons.

At this point, you’ll be worried about whether these aliens are mean-spirited. Hellyer said that only one or two species might be threatening. He didn’t mention whether they spoke Klingon.

In previous pronouncements, Hellyer has insisted that aliens know how to make us greener.

The aliens would, it seems, like to teach us better ways to live. Hellyer believes, though, that they are waiting for our consent. Moreover, they’re scared that if they revealed themselves we’d throw a conniption.

Honestly, it’s as if these aliens have never seen a single sci-fi show. We’ve been begging them to sort us out for many a year.

You’ll be wondering, though, about their technology. The aliens are “light years” ahead of us. And, apparently, “a lot of the things we use today, we got from them.”

Just in time for the New Years Eve celebration comes some great booze related news.

As if we didn’t already know that alcohol was the greatest thing since, well anything. Now its even better because “moderate” alcohol consumption may help boost your immune system and fight off infection.

Now the test subjects weren’t really people, they were rhesus macaques, which apparently is a type of monkey that have an immune system very similar to humans.

Not a rhesus macaques, but it is a monkey drinking Fosters — Australian for beer.

To find out how booze is even more awesome then we already thought, researchers vaccinated monkeys against smallpox and then separated them into two groups. The first group with 4% ethanol in their cages and the second with sugar water. All the lab monkeys has access to regular fresh water and food as well and they were monitored for 14 months.

Of course some of the caged monkeys drank more than others. The heavy drinking monkeys showed less of a response to the vaccine compared to monkeys who drank sugar water. While the monkeys who drank in “moderation” showed better responses to the vaccine compared to those who drank the water.

It’s just a matter of time before they send a cyborg back in time looking for Sarah Conner.

A new breakthrough in computing, in the form of a new kind of computer chip set to be released next year is upon us. This new computing approach will allow for the automation of certain computer tasks that now require programming from a human. The technology is based on the human nervous system and allows computers to absorb new information while completing tasks and adjust what they do based off of external stimuli.

Via The New York Times:

The new computing approach, already in use by some large technology companies, is based on the biological nervous system, specifically on how neurons react to stimuli and connect with other neurons to interpret information. It allows computers to absorb new information while carrying out a task, and adjust what they do based on the changing signals.

In coming years, the approach will make possible a new generation of artificial intelligence systems that will perform some functions that humans do with ease: see, speak, listen, navigate, manipulate and control. That can hold enormous consequences for tasks like facial and speech recognition, navigation and planning, which are still in elementary stages and rely heavily on human programming.

Designers say the computing style can clear the way for robots that can safely walk and drive in the physical world, though a thinking or conscious computer, a staple of science fiction, is still far off on the digital horizon.

“We’re moving from engineering computing systems to something that has many of the characteristics of biological computing,” said Larry Smarr, an astrophysicist who directs the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, one of many research centers devoted to developing these new kinds of computer circuits.

Conventional computers are limited by what they have been programmed to do. Computer vision systems, for example, only “recognize” objects that can be identified by the statistics-oriented algorithms programmed into them. An algorithm is like a recipe, a set of step-by-step instructions to perform a calculation. Read More Here…

French surgeon Alain Carpentier holds a prototype of the world’s first fully implantable artificial heart.

An artificial heart that can give patients up to five years of extra life has been successfully implanted for the first time.

The heart, powered by watch-style batteries that can be worn externally, was put into a patient at Paris’s Georges Pompidou Hospital.

It uses a range of “biomaterials”, including bovine tissue, to reduce the likelihood of the body rejecting it.

Unlike previous artificial hearts, created mainly for temporary use, the design by the French Carmat biomedical firm is intended to replace a real heart for as many as five years.

French medics said the unnamed male patient who received the device was awake and responding well after an operation on Wednesday. Marcello Conviti, the chief executive of Carmat, said: “We are delighted with this first implant, although it is premature to draw conclusions given that a single implant has been performed and that we are in the early post-operative phase.” Read more here…